Japan is preparing to launch a probe to the Mars moon Phobos to reveal the secrets of its origin

Bethlehem - Ofoq News - The Japanese Minister of Education, Culture and Technology, Yoshihiro Seki, announced that the Japanese probe that will soon be launched to the Mars moon “Phobos” will help explore this moon and its origins.

The minister said in a press conference in Tokyo: “We hope that this project will contribute to determining the origin of the Mars moon and developing technologies that will be useful in future human missions to Mars.” He described the probe mission as a “wonderful international project,” noting the participation of the United States and the European Union in it.

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) intends to launch the aforementioned probe on October 20 from a space base on Tanegashima Island using a heavy Japanese H3 space rocket. The probe will head towards the moons of Mars and collect samples from the “Phobos” moon, as its mission will witness landing operations on this moon, to collect at least 10 grams of its surface soil, so that these samples will be sent to Earth in 2031.

According to available information, the probe, which weighs about 4.5 tons, will be equipped with solar panels with a length of 9 meters, and will be equipped with technologies that may be used in future space missions to Mars, including manned missions.

This is not the first time that Japan has undertaken a mission of this kind. The Hayabusa-2 probe had previously captured soil samples from the asteroid Ryugu, located in orbit between Earth and Mars, in February 2019, and returned the capsule containing the rock samples to Earth in December 2020, where it landed in a remote area in Australia. After that, the probe continued its journey after a maneuver away from Earth, heading towards a new mission to explore another asteroid.